Should we terraform Mars?
Should we terraform Mars?
cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/546668
If so, this should not preclude us from cleaning up our own planet first!
As a wide-eyed kid this seemed like a no-brainer, but then having watched what Elon does with the things he owns I'm not sure it's such a good idea...
Yeah. I feel like the billionaires who are actively destroying this planet shouldn't get to be the first ones on a brand new one.
It would be a huge project, taking centuries, with kind of limited returns. I would be probably not opposed to it if someone were to start such a thing, but I think orbital habitats are the better place for humans to settle in space.
You mean, like this?
That and O'Neill cylinders
No. Mars is an inhospitable wasteland that will never be truly suited for humans due to the differences in size. Our planet is currently turning into a fucking wasteland and anyone who thinks that they can just create a new planet is delusional. Our planet is also still viable for many more billions of people if we could just take care of it! Things like permaculture are far more sustainable for larger populations. In a few hundred years, once Elon is long dead and forgotten, and if we can somehow be living in a form of a sustainable society, fine. (Also as far as terraforming planets go, if we were thinking about ever doing something like this we should be looking at venus, not earth. It's so similar to earth in terms of size that it's often called our sister planet. It also may have supported life sometime in the past.)
TL;DR: Hell no, for the next 500-1000 years and until our planet is livable.
I dont think it'll ever happen. Mars doesnt have a magnetosphere and as a result solar winds would erode away the added gasses and water vapor we manage to add into the system. Even if we were able to manage to get a breathable replenishing atmosphere I imagine the solar radiation would do bad things to us. We'd need like science fiction levels of shielding to keep it livable and we'd need to reach far off sci-fi levels of technology.
I imagine since there is an atmosphere that a pressurized dome city would be less fragile than say a structure on the moon since little holes and leaks wouldnt lead to dramatic explosive decompression. So colonization might be pretty doable but I think a green mars is unlikely.
Dome cities would be much more achievable, but still incredibly difficult unfortunately. It's cool to think it may be feasible in the next generation or two.
pressurized dome city
My dream is covered canyons with cliff dwellings. But I would settle for a dome+tunnel city.
If my profile banner is anything to go by, I think we should. Specifically because the second point. The technologies developed for it could be used on Earth to help control climate change.
Yes, eventually, but we should stop terraforming earth first
I love the idea and genuinely feel like the purpose or obligation of intelligent life is to spread and escape the confines of a single planet. But the first step has to be a stable environment here. If we can't maintain an ecology and atmosphere in literally the perfect conditions we're adapted for we have no business messing with other planets. That's not to say we shouldn't research and explore, but we're a long way from terraforming anything and Mars isn't exactly an awesome place to live even under ideal circumstances . A stable space station that's perminently habitable and self sufficient long-term is necessary before we can realistically consider further expansion. That would require us to have solved climate collapse and the mass extinction we've created which seems like a slim possibility at the moment.